


Vera

by quadrotriticale



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, POV Second Person, POV Steve Rogers, Thanks, another round of danny picks stucky fics out of his docs, i have a bunch of these just floating around, steve getting hurt is a TROPE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 01:19:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15183587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quadrotriticale/pseuds/quadrotriticale
Summary: You get out your sketchbook, your pencils and pens, spend a few minutes debating between which of the three records you stole back from your apartment you want to listen to, before deciding on Vera Lynn. The crackle-pop of old vinyl fills the room, and you’re more comfortable than you ever are anywhere else.





	Vera

**Author's Note:**

> the one boy who has been reading my hoard of fanfic collected in my google docs will recognize this as an overhauled version of something i wrote in feb 2017. the rest of you are fucking welcome.  
> again i didnt edit this because im fucking tired.

You’re a little beaten, a little bruised, but you’ll be fine. You’ve had worse than this, worse than this in a body that shouldn’t have been able to take half of it. You feel alright, for once. Bucky’s holding you up; you’d be walking on your own if someone hadn’t shot your leg, and even then you could probably walk yourself anyway. The help is appreciated regardless, and honestly, you just like opportunity to be close to him. You lean on him, let him lead you back to where your ride’s going to pick you up. For a second, you feel like you’re back in Brooklyn, can almost taste the air, almost see the buildings where the trees are supposed to be. You try to ignore it. 

He sets you down on a rock and you inspect your wound with a significant amount of distaste. It hurts, you’ll be glad when Nat shows up, she’s bound to have something you can use. Bucky keeps watch, paces around you with his gun in a ready position. He’s anxious- your ride should be there by now, or she should be here soon. You don’t hear an engine, but you don’t expect to. 

“She should be here by now,” he says, and you can hear the stress in his voice. You can’t risk being visible for too long, and you’d be easy to track down right now. No doubt someone got word that a lunatic and his friend took out another Hydra base. You’re supposed to be in hiding. You can’t just stay in hiding, can’t just sit around and do nothing. You don’t trust governments, you don’t trust Tony’s accords and frankly you’d rather be a vigilante than some lap dog for a bunch of rich bureaucrats.

“She’ll be here,” you try to reassure him. “She hasn’t missed a rendezvous yet, I doubt she’d miss one now. Nat’s resourceful, she’ll pull through.” 

He’s antsy, paces more than he needs to, flinches at little noises. He worries you. You never expected him to be the same guy you knew before all of this happened, he’d been hurt too much, you know that, but it’s little things- the shifts in his posture, the bags under his eyes, the deliberate way he moves- that bother you the most. He’s still Bucky of course. He’s still your friend, he knows you, he moves like he should when he’s calm enough, you see the recognition, the warmth in his eyes most of the time, but they took so much away from him. You know what a struggle it is for him to keep it together sometimes. It makes your blood boil if you think about it too much. 

You just wish Nat would get here. He’ll calm down once you’re in whatever she brings to take you back, he’ll calm down once he’s in the bunker.

(He’ll get far away for a while, when you talk to him he’ll look at you and for a second he won’t know who you are, and you’ll see it and it’ll hurt worse than anything physical ever could, it always does, but the recognition will come in the half second after and you’ll be okay.)

You inspect your wound again only to find that it’s stopped bleeding. You heal fast, so it’s not really a surprise. There’s an entry wound and an exit wound so you won’t have to worry about getting anything out of it, but you’re going to want to disinfect it. You hope Nat has something with her. (She knows you. You’d bet money that she’s got at least a basic first aid kit. Neither of you care much about your own personal well being, but you fuss over each other and she cares too much about the both of you to come pick you up without something on hand to deal with at least the superficial.)

You take off your helmet, rake a hand through your hair, shut your eyes for a moment. His footsteps don’t quite fall the same way they used to. The timing’s off, they’re too heavy, less fluid than you remember. (Maybe it’s the boots.)

(You know very well that it’s not the boots.)

You don’t like thinking too hard about what’s changed, because in your head you’re still a kid, you’re always just going to be a kid, and he’s still a head taller than you and stronger than you and better than you’ll ever be. You’re still in Brooklyn, the air still smells like salt and fish and his clothes still smell like tobacco, and you still fit against his side when you’re tired, when you’re scared, when you just feel like curling up with him. The radio’s still scratchy, still plays big band songs and Vera Lynn, the paper’s still cheap, and your pencils are still worn out nubs you’ve sharpened down to something that doesn’t fit in your hands. You’re still home, in you’re head. It’s hard, sometimes, to deal with the fact that home doesn’t exist, and neither of you are who you used to be. (Sometimes you think about what it would have been like if you’d just stayed where you were supposed to stay.)

You don’t talk much. He paces for what seems like an eternity, and you’re far away in your head, back in your shared apartment in a building that’s long since been demolished. You don’t remember what you were thinking about when the ground crunches under heavy tires and Bucky offers you a hand, tells you she’s here like you didn’t already know that, tells you it’s time to go. 

Nat greets you cheerfully from inside what you’d generally call an armoured jeep, apologizes for being late, says something about ‘a couple of thickheaded jackasses’ holding her up at the border. You’re not sure you believe her, but you figure she has a good reason for being late whether or not she’s telling you the truth.

“He thought you weren’t coming,” you tell her, climbing into the backseat. She laughs. 

“And leave you two in the wilderness, miles from civilized society, to fend for yourselves? You’d be dead within the week, I’d never,” she jokes. You chuckle. Bucky climbs in the front next to her and you see his shoulders lose a little of their tension. You relax against your seat.

You hear rustling around in the front as the car starts to move, and Bucky hands you first aid supplies, a bottle of water, and half of a tuna sandwich. You don’t particularly like tuna, but you’re hungry enough that it doesn’t matter, and you figure that you should eat something anyway. You’ll take what you can get. 

It’s a quiet drive, for the most part. There’s some chatter, but the three of you eventually lapse into a silence that you decide is comfortable. Nat drives, Bucky stares out the window, and you tend to your wounds until there’s nothing left to tend to. No one really has anything to say, and you’re okay with that.

You doze off at some point, wake up to Bucky shaking your shoulder lightly. He helps you out of the car like you need to be taken care of, and you appreciate it, but you brush him off, tell him you can walk fine even though you still limp. You’re underground so you can’t tell if it’s late or early, but he tells you it’s half past one when you ask. Since you’re still tired, you figure that it’s probably worth going to sleep in an actual bed, even if it’s just for a few hours. You don’t think you’ll go down right away, might spend a while just relaxing, but you guess you’ll cross that bridge when you get to it. You bid Nat goodnight and make your way to your room, Bucky trailing sometimes beside you and sometimes behind like he can’t decide where he’s supposed to be.

You change, so does he- baggy sweats and old t-shirts seem to be the civilian clothes of choice, and you’re fine with that. They’re a lot more comfortable than heavy super suits; you thank God that someone remembered to bring along cheap clothes when you ran. You get out your sketchbook, your pencils and pens, spend a few minutes debating between which of the three records you stole back from your apartment you want to listen to, before deciding on Vera Lynn. The crackle-pop of old vinyl fills the room, and you’re more comfortable than you ever are anywhere else.

You make your way over to your bed, tuck yourself up on your bunk so that you’re leaning against the wall, flip to a blank page in your sketchbook. Bucky sits with you a little ways away but still very much in reach if you wanted to show him something. You eventually find yourself curled up against his side, warm and sleepy and not quite the way it was when you were younger, but still the same comfort you want. He watches you draw, comments when he has something to say, and time passes uneventfully.

You sit, you talk to each other, you draw and he does his own thing. It’s a familiar atmosphere, something that hasn’t much changed since the two of you were kids. You’re grateful for that, that this isn’t one of the things you’ve lost. 

You do sleep, eventually, sketchbook and pens placed carefully on the floor beside your bunk. You’re not sure if Bucky sleeps, but he doesn’t seem to mind that you apparently require his presence to get your own rest. You sleep peacefully, and you don’t dream of anything that you remember.


End file.
